A gently comic picture of life in an English country town in the mid-19th century, delightfully dramatized on PBS's Masterpiece Theatre with Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins, Cranford relates the small adventures of Miss Matty and Miss Deborah, two middle-aged spinster sisters striving to live with dignity in reduced circumstances. Through a series of vignettes (originally published in serial form in Charles Dickens' magazine Household Words from 1851 to 1853) Elizabeth Gaskell portrays a community governed by old-fashioned habits and dominated by friendships between women—the Amazons of Cranford. This omnibus edition includes a short episode, "The Cage at Cranford," and two novellas, "Mr. Harrison's Confessions" and "My Lady Ludlow," all of which were incorporated in the series, as well as an introduction by Gaskell biographer and Cranford series consultant Jenny Uglow.